Created: July 17, 2020
Modified: July 17, 2020
Modified: July 17, 2020
emotional labor
This page is from my personal notes, and has not been specifically reviewed for public consumption. It might be incomplete, wrong, outdated, or stupid. Caveat lector.- Relationships and community and mental health are not automatically maintained, and maintaining them doesn't come for free.
- Comforting people when they're in distress is work. Asking someone how they're doing, how their day has been, etc., and listening sympathetically to the answers, is work. Giving someone a pep talk---telling them you believe in them and that they will succeed---is work.
- Emotional work can be very fulfilling, especially if it's being done and reciprocated as part of a strong relationship. But it can also be draining, especially if someone needs emotional support over a long time period.
- Emotional labor is usually not treated as part of the economy; it is sacred, not profane. But this means it is sometimes invisible, unappreciated, and uncompensated.
- Traditionally a lot of emotional labor has been done by women and unappreciated by men. Recognizing the value of this work is part of the project of feminism.
- What happens as women move into the workforce, and devote more of their energy to 'traditional' labor? We might hope that men would take over more of the emotional burden. However, since emotional labor is usually untracked and uncompensated, it seems more likely that the total amount of emotional labor will drop. No one will notice that less emotional labor is happening; they will only notice the downstream negative effects.
- Learning to do emotional labor is traditionally part of 'learning to be a woman'. It's not so much part of 'learning to be a man' in the traditional sense; it is more normal for men to grow up without a lot of practice or even realizing what emotional labor is, or why it's necessary.
- One might then expect that gay communities would struggle with this. If you get together a bunch of guys who were never trained to do or value emotional labor, not much emotional labor will get done. I think I felt this somewhat in my relationship with ExBoyfriend---he did clearly understand the value of emotional labor, and how to do it, but I didn't, and I ended up not doing as much of it. It wouldn't surprise me if this were common among young gays. For me, learning the importance of emotional labor has been an important part of maturing.